Not even the stars in my sky
by Skytower1
Summary: The Doctor and Nyssa travel to Fraggle Rock and meet a stranded Diane Chambers.


For those of you who like to keep continuity straight, this

story is taking place between Time Flight and Arc of

infinity. In cheers time it is taking place between the time Diane left to Finnish her novel and the final episode.

Not Even The Stars In My Sky

Part 1

The girl looked to be about fifteen. She had shoulder length hair the color of chestnut. Her face was attractive with wide hazel eyes and arched eyebrows that gave her an aristocratic air. At the moment however Nyssa was not in the least concerned with how she looked. What concerned her was outrunning the group of peppershaker shaped metal creatures that were chasing her. Behind her a young looking man with blonde hair and a round face deliberately ran a step slower than she did, interposing himself between her and their pursuers. The Doctor was older than Nyssa and taller by head than she was. His face was softer, somehow more innocent than Nyssa's despite his age.

"Halt or you will be exterminated!" the harsh, guttural voice came from behind them. Nyssa ignored the command and kept on running. She didn't need to look back to know that the Dalek's were getting closer.

She reached the TARDIS a few seconds before the Doctor and ducked as an energy bolt hit just above her head. The Doctor stopped beside her and in one motion inserted the TARDIS key into the door and let her inside. He was just behind her when one of the Dalek destructor beams passed by him and hit the TARDIS. The high energy bolt did nothing to the time machine, but the discharge of energy caught the Doctor just at the wrong moment. He collapsed as every nerve in his body was disrupted all at once.

Luckily his momentum carried him into the TARDIS and Nyssa slammed the door shut. As soon as it was closed she bent down to see how he was.

"It's nothing." he muttered, climbing to his feet. "Have to de-materialize."

With Nyssa supporting him the Doctor started to hit the switches on the TARDIS console that propelled the machine into the Time-Space Vortex.

Outside the TARDIS the pursuing Dalek's had surrounded the machine and each kept up a steady barrage of fire. The energy bolts struck the blue box having no effect. Quite suddenly however the light on top of the box started to flash and the TARDIS began to fade away. The strange sound of matter vanishing into another universe accompanied it.

"Report to central control," one of them said. "The TARDIS is dematerializing."

"I obey," said another of the Daleks.

Central Control was a large room in the center of the Dalek flagship. Here was to be found the best examples of their technology and craftsmanship. Though the room would have appeared dungeon-like to any human, to the Daleks it was perfect. It was dimly lit and the panels and instruments that covered every conceivable space had a beyond-spartan appearance. There was no sense of symmetry or style to the room, just the blank conformity of expediency and logic.

"Patrol reports that the TARDIS is dematerializing," a

Dalek with a silver stripe reported. In the center of the room, an oversized Dalek with a black stripe responded quickly.

"Engage time circuits for pursuit. Fire the seeker."

"There has been disruption of the time circuits," the silver Dalek said.

"Obey me!" screeched the black Dalek.

The console room of a TARDIS would strike the casual observer as being very different from that of the Dalek control room. In the first place a TARDIS is larger inside than it is outside. Far from being dungeon like it is a friendly open place. Here the walls are indented with round holes about one foot in diameter and spaced evenly apart in neat rows. Inside each hole is a semi transparent cover that is a few shades darker than the light beige of the walls. These roundels can be opened to reveal the intricate circuitry of the time machine or storage compartments. On one wall is a large square that serves as a display screen for the scanner.

Dominating the room is a large six sided control console. In the center of that console is a transparent column known as the time rotor. In many ways the heart of the TARDIS the time rotor in normal operation moves up and down in a smooth steady motion that tells you all is well.

It was not doing so now.

"Doctor what's happening?" Nyssa asked, noting the time rotor's jerky motion.

The Doctor moved to a different part of the console, activating systems as he explained.

"The Dalek's are trying to dematerialize at the same time we are, trying to stop us from leaving."

"Can they do that?"

"In theory they can. Just as no two objects can materialize in the same space/time coordinates no two objects can de-materialize from the same space/time coordinates. Their entry into the Time-Space Vortex is causing a barrier field to be created."

"Can that stop us?"

"Not if I'm very clever."

He hit another switch on the console and the room shuddered for a moment, then the time rotor began to move in a steady up down motion once more. The Doctor smiled despite the pain from his wound.

"I think I did something very clever."

In the Dalek control room, the response to the Doctor's maneuver was near panic.

"The TARDIS is no longer visible in the continuum!" the silver Dalek reported.

"Was seeker launched?"

"Affirmative. Temporal field unstable! We are in danger!"

"Activate time stability circuits."

"We have instability in the time circuits!"

"Compensate!"

"Unable to compensate! Temporal instability field growing!"

"Stop power to time circuits!"

The silver dalek moved to obey, but it was too late. In the few microseconds it took him to understand and begin to carry out the order, he was dead of old age. Even so his momentum carried him toward the control panel, but by the time he had touched it, a few seconds and several million years later, metal fatigue caused it to dissolve under his touch.

On the scanner screen in the TARDIS the Doctor and Nyssa watched as the Dalek ship started to crumble away into dust.

"What happened to them?"

"Unstable temporal field," The Doctor said, making more adjustments on the console. "That's what happens when you don't have a temporal limiter. The time field caused them to age at an exponential rate."

"But you said we couldn't de-materialize as long as the

Daleks were operating their own time systems."

"Normally we couldn't, but the TARDIS is just a bit more advanced than the Dalek's time travel technology. I shifted us into another section of the vortex and we bypassed the Dalek ship entirely. He paused and looked at the time rotor. "It has caused us to deviate a bit from the TARDIS normal mode of flight, but I don't think that's serious.

He stumbled against the console and Nyssa suddenly remembered that he was wounded.

"Come on," she said, helping him stand up. "We better see to that wound."

The Doctor gasped in pain and let her help him out of the console room and into the interior of the TARDIS.

Behind the TARDIS, the Dalek command ship continued to shatter as the stresses of time ate away at the structure of the vessel. Just beyond the ship, however, at the very edge of the time field a grey ball broke free. It hovered for a moment in real time and space and then vanished, following the TARDIS into the Space-Time Vortex.

The Seeker was old now, fifty thousand years had effectively passed from the time it had been launched to the time it had finally broken free of the unstable time field.

No more than half of it still worked and that half worked badly. Even old, however, it still functioned. It was programmed to seek out the Doctor and detonate. It would do so until the end of its existence.

In the TARDIS, Nyssa had made sure the Doctor was comfortably in bed and resting before walking back to her own room. Though it wasn't far from the Doctor's room to hers, Nyssa felt as though she was walking for miles. It had been nearly two days since she had had any real sleep. From the time of the Doctor's involvement with the Morellans to the final destruction of the Dalek ship, Nyssa had been in almost constant motion. While the Doctor seemed to enjoy such situations, even thrive on them, to Nyssa they were exhausting.

I have not been brought up for this sort of life, she thought as she entered her own room. Aside from the clothes she wore, everything in Nyssa's room had been there when she had first joined the Doctor. There had been no time to take anything with her from Traken before its destruction. Since then, she had found furniture from the TARDIS's immense store rooms. The bed, desk and chair were comfortable but the fabrics and designs would always feel alien to her. There were times when she longed for the relaxing atmosphere of her home world.

More recently there were times she longed for someone to talk to. When Nyssa had first joined the TARDIS crew there had been two other people there. Adric, a young man from the planet Alzarius, had died at the hands of the Cybermen and Tegan, an air hostess from Earth, had left a short time after that. It was Tegan's departure that upset Nyssa. It had been abrupt without even a good-bye. There was also the fact that Teagan was back on her home, on Earth. She felt jealous of Tegan for having a home planet and guilty because of that jealousy. With Tegan gone and Adric dead Nyssa often felt as if she were alone in all the universe. True the Doctor was a good friend, willing to listen almost anytime you had a problem, but then the Doctor was part of the problem. He was a Time Lord with a life-span that was immeasurably longer than hers. To Nyssa, raised to revere and respect age, that placed an unspoken barrier between them. Also unspoken was the feeling that the Doctor would never talk about his past, about why he had left his own people and why he continually got involved in other race's problems. Even when they didn't want him to. Nearly every place the TARDIS landed got them involved in one crisis or another and the Doctor always got involved. In her life on Traken, Nyssa had never been in danger, since she had started traveling with the Doctor she had been shot at, imprisoned and threatened more times than she cared to count.

As she got ready for bed Nyssa tried to think of someway she could ask the Doctor to visit Tegan. Would he know that Nyssa's request to visit would just be an excuse to leave the TARDIS and live with her? Nyssa knew that, if she asked she could live with her friend on Earth. But she was also afraid of hurting the Doctor, he seemed lost without companionship. Though she didn't know it, Nyssa was repeating thoughts that had worried many of the Doctor's companions. Despite his vast age and wisdom, there was always that feeling that if they were to leave, he would get into some really serious trouble. Exhausted Nyssa fell into a troubled sleep with her problem still unresolved.

Diane Chambers sat at the entrance to outer space and read her diary.

"Look, if I don't see you again have a nice life."

"I will be back in six months." I told him but Sam

didn't seem to believe me. Well I'll show him, Diary.

I will walk back into Cheers in six months a published

authoress. Then we will be wed.

She closed the diary and slumped against the side of the tunnel. She had written those words with so much assurance it had bordered on arrogance. Now it seemed she was paying for that arrogance. The six months was up tomorrow and getting back to Cheers seemed a very remote possibility. Looking out of the entrance she saw outer space. A cellar.

It wasn't really outerspace of course, it was the entrance to Earth. An Earth, Diane had serious doubts about ever seeing again.

Six months earlier Diane had left Boston and come to the seashore to write her novel. But leaving the man she loved had frustrated all of her writing efforts, and she had started to take long walks along the beach. On one of those walks she had met Doc, an inventor and his dog Sprocket. Doc proved to be a good listener and invited Diane to dinner.

She had accepted and they had stopped by his workshop to feed Sprocket. It was then that the most amazing thing that had ever happened to Diane, happened. Doc had gone upstairs to get some dog food and Diane started to wander about his workshop, composing a poem about the man. A small furry creature had come out of a hole in the wall. Sprocket had jumped up to give chase and accidentally activated a shrinking machine. Before Diane realized what had happened she had gone from being five feet eight inches tall too about two feet tall. In looks and proportions she had not changed. She still had a slender figure and an attractive almond shaped face framed by blond hair. Even her seabag, which held all sorts of useful items, including her diary, was still with her. But she was now very small and in panic had followed the small furry creature into the hole.

The furry creature she came to know was Gobo Fraggle and the hole she had followed him into was the entrance to

Fraggle Rock. What exactly Fraggle Rock was Diane didn't know. It existed as a series of caves and tunnels. Aside from Gobo there was an entire race of fraggles, along with other creatures who made their home in the Rock. The shrinking machine had destroyed itself after reducing her, and the only other way Diane knew of to get her normal size back was to eat a magic mushroom. The mushroom would take a year to grow.

So she settled in Fraggle Rock with the fraggles. They were friendly, helpful and the Rock itself was endlessly fascinating. But for Sam, Diane would have had no problem staying in the Rock for the rest of her life. Or at least as long as it took to grow the mushroom. But there was Sam.

"Maid of Athens, ere we part, Give, Oh, give me back my heart!" Diane couldn't remember the rest of Lord Byron's poem and for once that didn't bother her. Picking up her seabag she stood up and started to walk back toward the great hall.

As she walked Diane's curiosity about Fraggle Rock re-surfaced. What was it? The fraggles didn't know, indeed they weren't even curious. Their ancestors had settled in the Rock, named it for themselves and promptly forgotten where they had come from. Even the World's Oldest Living

Fraggle didn't know. Diane had walked down a lot of the tunnels, but, for the most part they were all the same, rock covered with phosphorescent moss which gave off enough light to see by. Here and there were bits of pipe going from somewhere to somewhere. Vegetation of amazing variety grew everywhere. Aside from an entrance into the gorg's garden it seemed to Diane that the tunnels went on forever.

Her inability to solve the mystery of the Rock, combined with the impossibility of getting back to Cheers on time, depressed her even more. Diane was so depressed that she didn't even notice it when she walked in on her own party.

"Surprise!" shouted all the fraggles.

Diane looked up and saw that a party had been planned for her. A large banner had been hung above the pool with the words "Cheers for Diane" written on it. Moki, Diane's best friend amongst the fraggles rushed over to her.

"Surprise Diane!" she shouted. Moki looked more or less like all fraggles. She was about Diane's height with thin arms and legs, a round body and a round head. A long tail with a puff of fur on the end combined with very large eyes to give her a puppet-like look. Moki wore a green poncho and around her neck on a string was the pull top to a soda can.

"I don't believe it." Diane said, allowing Moki to lead her to the pool. Beside the pool was a large doozer construction that spelled out her name. "I only left an hour ago, how did you do all of this so fast?"

"I organized." Moki replied. "Just like you told us you did when you ran that bar in Boston. Come on, we need you to take the first bite."

Diane looked at the construction. Doozers lived alongside the fraggles in the rock. Small to a point of making the fraggles look tall, doozers often reminded Diane of the Pillsbury dough boy. They were all green and wore hard hats and tool belts. They "mined" vegetables that grew in the ground and turned them into clear, plastic-looking sticks which they then used to build marvelous towers. After each tower was completed, the fraggles would eat them--the towers, not the doozers. The doozers would then build another tower.

Diane thought it a strange way of life but it worked.

"Speech!" a fraggle called out from the crowd.

"Well..." Diane began, taking a deep breath. A sigh went through the fraggle's and they sat down. Everyone in the rock knew that when Diane took a deep breath and began a sentence with :"Well..." she could go on for hours. Still they were all too polite to interrupt, so they sat down and listened.

In another part of the Rock there came a strange noise. It could have been described as the noise of a bellows that wasn't quite working well, or perhaps a very large person out of breath. The sound built to a crescendo as the TARDIS faded into existence.

Inside the TARDIS, the Doctor operated the scanner screen and looked at the coordinates, a puzzled frown appeared on his face.

"Are you sure you're all right Doctor?" Nyssa asked.

"Perfectly fine."

Nyssa frowned at the Doctor's cavalier response. He had been lucky that the beam from the Dalek's gun had only grazed him. It was a constant source of irritation to Nyssa how lightly the Doctor took his own well being. It had only been two days since they had escaped from the Dalek command ship and Nyssa felt he should still be resting. Nyssa was at least sure that she should be resting; she was still tired.

"Where are we?"

"According to the coordinates we should be on Earth."

"Are we?"

"Well, yes and no, the time and space locations are correct, but we seem to be in a cave of some sort."

Nyssa waited while the Doctor adjusted more of the controls. Another question would do no good; he would explain when he decided to.

The Doctor operated a control and the scanner screen came to life, showing a large cave with glowing phosphorous on the walls and vegetation spaced about unevenly.

"If these coordinates are correct, we should have landed underwater," the Doctor commented.

"Why underwater?"

"Well I slipped a bit as we were taking off." The Doctor explained, looking a bit sheepish. "I was aiming for the New England seacoast. I thought we needed a bit of a rest."

"Perhaps we're in an underwater cave."

"Air pressure's all wrong for that." He operated a control and the scanner changed, giving them a wider view. "Well, we seem to be somewhere." The Doctor walked over to the control that operated the doors and pulled it down. The doors opened and he smiled. "Let's go find out where."

He walked out and Nyssa followed him.

The cave appeared little different when they stepped out of the TARDIS. The Doctor came first, taking a deep breath and then stepping a few feet away to examine a rainbow-colored flower that was growing on the wall. Nyssa hung back at the TARDIS door. Experience had taught her that any place that the Doctor landed the TARDIS was probably going to be dangerous. Still nothing happened, no monster appeared no guns were leveled at them. Nyssa relaxed a little bit and closed the door.

"Interesting," said the Doctor, totally involved in studying the plant. "Not like anything I've ever seen before on Earth.

The plant could have been drawn by an artist with a bad eye for color. Though it was shaped like a rose, each petal contained not one but several different colors.

"A mutation perhaps?" Nyssa suggested.

"Possibly." The Doctor straightened up and looked around. "There seems to be a bit of light coming from over there. Let's go find out where we are."

Nyssa watched him go toward the light and hung back for a minute, she didn't want to share the Doctor's curiosity but she did. She watched him stop about twenty feet away and argued with herself as to whether she should go with him or go back into the TARDIS.

"Come take a look," the Doctor called. "It seems to be a valley with..."

The air shimmered and his words were distorted. A large whine filled the cave, sounding almost like the TARDIS when it materialized. Suddenly the cave started to shake. Nyssa saw the plants flattened against the wall, then the wall itself pushed outward in all directions. Great cracks appeared and pieces of the roof fell narrowly missing her.

The last sight Nyssa had of the Doctor was the man stumbling back out of the cave. Then a grey wall appeared causing even more chaos. Nyssa felt herself being thrown back into the wall of the cave. Stunned, she felt rather than saw the roof fall on her.

The Seeker fully materialized, using a repellor field to fit into the landing place. Immediately it's sensors detected the Time Lord and the artificial brain ordered it's motive units into operation. At the same time the bomb that

was the machines heart was primed. The motive units had decayed many centuries earlier and were long since useless. If the TARDIS were to take off the Seeker could follow it into the Time-Space Vortex, but it was no longer capable of movement in real time and space. But the bomb remained primed. All that was required to trigger it was a Time Lord's touch.

Gobo Fraggle walked happily along the tunnels toward the Gorg's garden. Gobo was always happy after an exploration and his current expedition had been especially interesting. He had found a great echoing cavern that not only repeated words and sounds, but answered questions and told jokes as well. True, most of the answers were wrong but the jokes had been great. Gobo was looking forward to a nice radish snack before getting back to the Rock. He was so happy, he didn't even notice the grey wall someone had put in the middle of the tunnel until he ran into it.

"Hey!" Gobo shouted. Surprised, he touched the wall. It was humming softly. Now that Gobo was fully aware of the wall, he realized that it completely blocked the tunnel.

There was no way to get to the gorg's garden. Stunned and a little frightened, the small fraggle backed away from the wall and bumped into a large blue box. The box also hummed at his touch, though not in the same way. Scared, Gobo ran.

Some time later Diane, Gobo, Red, Moki, Boober and Wembley stood and inspected the box and the wall. Gobo was usually not prone to panic but the gorg's garden was one of the fraggles' principle food sources. Since he had never seen anything like either the box or the wall Gobo reasoned Diane (being from outerspace) might know what they were.

The box stood taller than Diane by a good three feet. On the top was a sign reading, "POLICE CALL BOX". There was a set of doors in the front and next to the lock was a small plate with white on black lettering. The letters were a mystery to the fraggles, they could read and write English to a certain point, but the meaning of the words puzzled them.

"Police Telephone Free For Use Of Public." Diane read. "Advice And Assistance Obtainable Immediately. Officers and Cars Respond To Urgent Calls. Pull To Open."

"What is it?" Gobo asked

Diane looked at the police box, though she had visited

London she had done so long after the introduction of walkie-talkies. She had no way of knowing that prior to that police boxes had been a common sight on many a street. The TARDIS had in fact taken on the shape of one to more blend in with it's surroundings. However the part of the TARDIS that had done that seemed to like the shape very much and showed no sign of changing. No matter where in the universe it traveled it always looked like a police box.

Diane looked at the box closely. "I don't know." She walked over to the box and cautiously put her hand against it. Just as quickly she snatched it back. "Your right,

Gobo, it's humming. Almost as if it were alive."

"It's a horrible monster!" Boober shouted, backing away.

"I don't know," Red said, "I've seen a lot of monsters and this doesn't look like one."

"Maybe it's lost?" Moki suggested.

Diane turned away from the TARDIS and looked at the grey wall. Cautiously she put her hand against it and quickly snatched it back.

"This one's humming too."

"Could the Gorgs have put it there?"

"I don't think so Red. This isn't the sort of thing they would do."

"How do we get past it?" Wembley asked.

"We could try to dig around it," Diane suggested.

"Let's find some sticks for shovels then," Moki said.

The fraggles started to drift in different directions, looking behind smaller rocks and down other tunnels. Boober saw something sticking up from behind a rock. Taking hold of it he pulled. It moaned and pulled back.

"Help! A vicious stick has me!"

They rushed over to him and Diane took a match from her

seabag and lit it. By it's light they could see a girl lying half-buried behind the rocks. Diane brought the match a little closer and saw an ugly gash on the side of the girl's head.

"Is she dead?"

Grimacing at the blood, Diane felt the girl's neck for a pulse, she didn't find one.

"I'm afraid she is, Red."

The girl moaned.

"Are you sure?"

"She must be," Diane mumbled. Puzzled she held the girl's wrist. "There's no pulse."

The girl moaned again.

"We better get her back to my cave," Gobo said.

"You're right, we can't do much for her here." Diane shifted one of the larger rocks and picked the girl up, moving her into the center of the tunnel. In the better light, Diane could see that the girl was young, probably about fifteen or so. She had brown hair and a face that would have looked pretty if not for the dirt and blood on it. The hand that had grabbed Boober was ok, but her other hand was covered with blood. Diane felt the hand carefully, it didn't feel broken, though there was some swelling and lacerations. The girl was wearing a blue skirt that came about to her knees and a blue tunic. Blue boots completed the ensemble. "I can't carry her all the way though. See if you can find some sticks so we can make a stretcher."

"What if I find another one like her?"

"Then we'll make two stretchers," Gobo said.

Nyssa floated in and out of consciousness. Her mind was trying to work, but things seemed fuzzy. Dreams flittered past her eyes, strange furry creatures and a strange woman. But every time she tried to focus on something, the pain in her head got worse and she drifted into oblivion again.

Finally, she was able to wake up and open her eyes. She was in a cave of some sort. There were alcoves cut into the walls, forming smaller caves or chambers. One of them held a fire, the rest seemed to be storage places. She was in one herself, Nyssa realized. A blanket covered her and there was something on her head. Reaching up Nyssa felt a bandage. Another bandage was wrapped around her hand which was throbbing slightly. Under the blanket someone had thrown over her, Nyssa realized she was wearing a robe.

"Hello," said a pleasant sounding voice to her left.

Nyssa looked up and saw a woman, perhaps in her late twenties. She had light blonde hair and blue eyes. Her face reminded Nyssa of the Doctor's. She was wearing a long tunic that fell to her knees and was belted at the waist. What the tunic was made of Nyssa wasn't sure; it looked like it was woven from thick strips of cloth.

"How are we feeling today?" the woman asked.

"Where am I?" Nyssa tried to ask, but her throat was too dry. The woman held up a cup filled with water and Nyssa drank gratefully. When she was through drinking she, asked again. "Where am I?"

"You're in Fraggle Rock."

"Fraggle Rock?"

Diane smiled in sympathy as the girl repeated the name.

Diane had come to Fraggle Rock in much the same condition, with a large headache.

"My name is Diane Chambers," she said, holding out her hand.

"I am Nyssa of Traken," the girl responded formally taking Diane's hand. "How long have I been here?"

"Two days," Diane replied. "How are you feeling?"

"There is some pain but it is receding. How did I get here?"

"We found you in the tunnel next to the entrance to the

Gorg's garden. What happened?"

"The Doctor and I..." Nyssa sat straight up. "The Doctor!"

"Who?"

"The man I was with, did you find him as well?"

"No, I'm afraid not."

"I have to find him." Nyssa pushed aside the blanket and tried to stand up. A wave of dizziness pushed her back down.

"Easy," Diane said. "You had a very bad head wound when I found you." Diane felt Nyssa's wrist. "And you still don't have a pulse." She put the back of her hand against Nyssa's forehead. "And you seem a bit cool as well."

"Here." Nyssa took Diane's hand and moved it further up her arm.

"That's not right," Diane mumbled, feeling the solid beat of a heart. She held Nyssa's arm for a minute, counting to herself. "It's too slow." She said at last.

"It isn't for me," Nyssa said.

"You're not human!"

"No. I'm from Traken."

Diane sat down, trying to take the news in. A part of her wondered why she was amazed at all. After Fraggle Rock what is there to wonder about an alien?

Nyssa gave Diane a few seconds, for some reason humans often reacted like this to off worlders. At first it had confused Nyssa until Tegan told her that no one on Earth believed in aliens.

"Oh good, she's awake," said a strange looking creature coming into the cave. Nyssa looked at the creature closely.

For some reason, she knew it was a girl, though there were no obvious female features save for long semi-green hair. She wore a poncho and a vest that was made from the same material as the one Diane was wearing.

"This is Moki Fraggle," Diane said.

"Hello."

"Moki, this is Nyssa of Traken."

"Hi, is Traken somewhere in outerspace?"

"It used to be." Nyssa said, trying to get up again. "Can you show me back to where you found me? I must find the Doctor."

"Well, we found you next to the entrance to the Gorg's garden." Diane said, holding her down. "But there's a grey wall blocking the way now. Can you tell us what happened?"

"A grey wall?" Nyssa tried to remember, but nothing seemed to be clear.

"There's also a police box that wasn't there before."

"The TARDIS?" Relief flooded over Nyssa, if the TARDIS wasstill there the Doctor would be some place nearby.

"The what?"

"What's a TARDIS?" Moki asked.

"It's a..." Nyssa faltered, describing a TARDIS to someone who has never seen one is not easy. Again she struggled to get out of the small bed, this time ignoring the dizziness. "I have to get back to it. I can use the scanner to find the Doctor."

"Easy." Diane and Moki helped her sit up. "You're not going anywhere until you have something to eat at least. Moki could you go and get a bunch of doozer sticks please."

"Sure." Moki started to leave.

"Oh and see if Boober has gotten Nyssa's clothes clean

yet."

"Okay."

"That robe was the only thing I had that would fit you," Diane explained, after Moki left. "Your clothes were

filthy."

"Thank you," Nyssa took another sip from the cup. Her head was clearing and questions were beginning to form in her mind.

"Where did you say I was?"

"Fraggle Rock."

"Fraggle Rock." Nyssa repeated, the name sounded strange to her. "I am on Earth, then?"

"Not really."

"Oh."

"Tell me, are you usually this tall or did you shrink to get here like I did?"

"What?"

"Well, I was just wondering how you got here. The only two ways I know of are through Doc's workshop or the Gorg's garden."

The room was starting to swim around her, Nyssa reached outand grabbed the wall for support.

"We materialized in a cave."

"You mean you just appeared? How?"

"Here are your clothes." Moki said, walking in on them. In one hand she held Nyssa's cloths, and in the other, she had a collection of clear plastic sticks. She set the clothes down and offered Nyssa one of the plastic sticks.

"Doozer stick?"

Nyssa took the stick out of politeness, not sure what to do with it.

"They're very good for you," Diane said, taking a bite out of the one Moki handed to her.

Nyssa cautiously took a bite. It tasted good and she suddenly realized she was very hungry.

They ate in silence, though Nyssa could tell that Diane was desperate to ask more questions. She didn't, however, and the food helped Nyssa to clear her mind. After she had finished all of the doozer sticks, Nyssa dressed and answered a few of Diane's questions.

"You mean you can go anywhere at any time?"

"Virtually yes."

"Wow, that must be fun!" Moki said.

"Some of the time it is." Nyssa pulled her boots on. "I have to get back to the TARDIS. If the Doctor is hurt, he might be there."

"We'll show you where it is," Moki said. "And maybe you can help us get that grey wall out of the way."

"I shall try. Diane what is this place?"

"This is Fraggle Rock," Moki said.

"Where is it?"

"Here."

"I'll try to explain along the way," Diane said.

During the walk from Moki's room to the TARDIS, Nyssa tried to understand where she was. Diane was human, the fraggles were not, nor were the doozers. The Doctor had mentioned that the coordinates placed the TARDIS on Earth. It was a puzzle and Nyssa felt that if she had more information she could solve it.

"Diane how did you come to be here?"

"Well, about six months ago I came to the sea shore to write a book. It's too bad you didn't come yesterday I could have shown it to you. It is quite good, if I do say so myself, not in the range of Yeats or Shelly, but enjoyable and uplifting."

"So, Fraggle Rock is located by the sea?" That could mean she was in some sort of underwater cave.

"Not quite. You see I was having bit of trouble writing the book, so I took a walk on the beach. Walks along the beach are very relaxing you know. The muse visits you there almost with out fail."

"The muse?" Nyssa asked.

It took approximately a half hour to get to the TARDIS. In that time, Diane talked about herself, her book and her first few days in the Rock. In the great hall, they were joined by other fraggles. Diane introduced them and continued to talk.

"...So, luckily I was able to escape the gorgs but I couldn't have done it without them." She gave Moki a hug.

"These creatures saved you from giants?" Nyssa couldn't keep the amazement out of her voice.

"I couldn't have gotten away without them." Diane said.

Nyssa studied the fraggles with renewed interest. Gobo was the same height as the other fraggles, he wore a striped shirt and a leather jacket. His head was covered with a shock of red hair and the end of his tail had a puff of fur the same color. He seemed to be the explorer of the group and Nyssa suspected that if Diane hadn't been there Gobo would have been in charge. Red wore a red sweater and her hair was done up to form two pom-poms. Wembley had white hair and wore a flowered shirt. Boober had a hat that covered nearly all of his hair and a scarf. His hair was red and seemed to cover his eyes.

Though she tried, Nyssa could not place the fraggles into any of the life form categories she knew. Nor could she imagine them saving Diane from a race of giant life forms. The fraggles looked far too comical. Nyssa tried talking to them as they walked, but her questions were usually answered with questions so she soon gave up. She found it difficult to believe, however, that they would be of any help during a crisis.

She was grateful to see the TARDIS standing unmoved and untouched. A few feet away, the grey wall blocked the tunnel.

Diane thumped the wall with a stick.

"We've tried to push it, break it, and dig around it."

Nyssa studied the wall carefully.

"This must have materialized between the Doctor and I. It caused the rock slide that I was caught in.

"If we don't get it out of the way soon, the only way into the Gorg's Garden will be through the castle."

"There is another way out?"

"Sure, if you don't mind sneaking past the giant spider," Red said. "That thing has traps set all over the place."

Nyssa walked over to the TARDIS and put her key in the lock. "Perhaps the scanner will be able to tell us something."

"Oh my goodness!" Diane was stunned. No maybe stunned wasn't a good enough word. Since she had come to Fraggle

Rock, Diane had realized that words like impossible, incredible, and unbelievable were sadly inadequate to describe the wonders of the universe. She had searched her vocabulary for more and failed. Still, what kind of word describes a box that can be bigger on the inside than on the outside?

Nyssa entered the console room naturally, not even noticing the size discrepancy. Behind her, Diane and the fraggles stood just inside the doors and stared.

"This is what you travel in?" Diane asked.

"Yes." Nyssa started to operate the scanner. "The Doctor has told me that the name TARDIS is actually an acronym for Time And Relative Dimensions In Space, though I am not quite sure what he means by that."

"And he can go anywhere in this?"

"Almost."

"Hey, there's even more of it." Gobo said, standing at thedoor that led to the interior of the TARDIS.

"Don't go far," Nyssa cautioned him. "It's very easy to get lost."

"Don't worry."

Diane hardly noticed Gobo go, she was staring intently at the console.

"Does everyone in outerspace have one of these?" Moki asked.

"No." Diane walked around the console. "I've never seen anything like this before. It's like something out of the Arabian Nights."

"The Arabian Nights?" Nyssa asked, looking up from the scanner.

"A set of legends from the Middle East." Diane walked over and stood beside her. "This reminds me of Ali Baba's cave."

"You shall have to tell me this tale sometime."

"Only if you tell me about Traken. Does the Doctor come from there as well?"

"No, only I come from Traken."

Diane saw a look of sadness pass across Nyssa's face, then the young girl became all business and operated a control. The scanner screen on the wall came to life. Unnoticed by either woman, the rest of the fraggles followed Gobo into the interior of the TARDIS. A multicolored map appeared on the scanner screen. In the center was a blue square representing the TARDIS. Tunnels appeared as yellow borders branching off in all directions. A few inches away from the TARDIS on the map, a large grey object was blinking on and off. As it blinked off, yellow borders traced the outlines of where the tunnel had been. At the bottom of the screen were the words: ALIEN OBJECT DISRUPTING DIMENSIONAL FIELD. DIMENSIONAL BORDERS UNSTABLE. FIELD COLLAPSE IMMINENT. TIME TO COLLAPSE FIVE HOURS.

"That doesn't sound good at all," Diane said.

"It isn't good. Whatever that thing is, its basic structure is incompatible with this area of time and space."

"What is it?"

"I don't know." Nyssa operated the scanner screen and the map focused in on the grey object. The words: OBJECT SHIELDED. UNABLE TO ANALYZE appeared at the bottom of the screen. "Whatever it is, I don't think its purpose is friendly."

"Why not?"

"Friendly devices don't usually shield themselves from scans. We have to find the Doctor. He should know how to deal with it."

"Are you sure?" Diane asked. She like to deal with problems on her own.

"Unless you have any better ideas." Nyssa operated one of the controls again. The map re-appeared on the screen. "I last saw the Doctor here," she said, pointing to the tunnel on the other side of the grey object.

"That leads to the gorg's garden." Diane informed her, frowning. "If he managed to avoid them, he should be alright. Trouble is, there are only two ways there, one through the tunnel and the other under the castle."

"Do you know the way?"

"Yes, not as well as Gobo, but..." Diane stopped and looked around. "Where are they?"

"They must have followed Gobo into the TARDIS." Diane and Nyssa walked over to the door that led to the TARDIS interior.

"Gobo!" Diane yelled. She received no response and tried again. "Gobo! Moki! Red! Boober! Wembley!" The two of them waited for a few moments, but there was no reply. "Oh dear, I guess we'll have to go look for them."

"Wait." Nyssa stopped Diane before she could go any further. "How long would it take to get to the other side of the tunnel through the Gorg's Castle?"

"About two hours. Why?"

"Don't you understand? The computer said that we have fivehours before the field collapses."

"So?"

"So, when the field collapses, there will be a tremendous release of energy. Fraggle Rock will be destroyed."

"What? You mean that thing is some kind of bomb?"

"I don't know what it is but its presence is causing a build-up of energy due to the irritation of the dimensional fields."

"Like blowing up a balloon in a box," Diane said, realizing the problem.

"Right." Nyssa started toward the door. "We have to find the Doctor."

"What about the fraggles?"

"They'll be safe, nothing in the TARDIS can harm them."

"But we might need their help."

"Diane, I don't think they will be of much help. Besides we don't have much time."

"They know these tunnels much better than I do."

"But they are not here and it will take too much time to find them."

Diane hesitated for a moment. Clearly Nyssa was telling the truth about the TARDIS being safe but it didn't feel right leaving without the fraggles. They had been on quite a few adventures together and Diane had seen them handle many a crisis. Also, she was by no means convinced that this Doctor friend of Nyssa's was the miracle worker the young girl claimed he was. Still, there wasn't much time and if Nyssa was hurt by the grey wall's appearance, perhaps the Doctor had been as well.

"I'll leave them a note."

Diane took a piece of paper out of her pocket and scribbled a quick note, placing it on the console. It fell off and floated to the floor.

"We must hurry." Nyssa said.

"I know." Diane said. She wedged the note under one of the controls and followed Nyssa out.

"Which way?" Nyssa asked.

"I think it was down this way," Diane replied, walking over to one of the tunnels. "I really think we should wait for Gobo, he knows almost every inch of the Rock."

"There isn't time. The TARDIS is like a labyrinth; it could take us hours to find them."

"Alright." Diane started to walk down the tunnel and Nyssa followed her. "You don't suppose there's any chance of them finding their way back to the control room?"

"I doubt it."

An hour later, Diane and Nyssa came to a stop in front of a solid wall. It was the third one they had come to in the past fifteen minutes and Nyssa was beginning to regret her decision to leave the fraggles in the TARDIS.

"Are we lost?"

"Of course not," Diane said. She reached up and gave the wall a push. "Well, not really. I haven't been this way in a few weeks."

"So, we are lost," Nyssa insisted.

"Only a little. Maybe if we had some more light." Diane took a step back from the wall and sang out a long note.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to get a little light," Diane explained. "The moss that gives light in the rock grows better if there's a good sound source."

"Really?" Nyssa was intrigued. On Traken her teachers had speculated on such things.

"Yes, I think that's one of the reasons the fraggles love to sing so much. Can you sing?"

"Yes."

"Good, try this." Diane cleared her throat and sang out: "The Hills are alive with the sound of music..."

Nyssa repeated the words and after a few minutes of singing the moss started to give off more light. Diane kept on singing and walked a few feet down a different tunnel.

"Ah, I know where we are now."

"Will it take us long?"

"I don't think so. Come on."

Diane charged off and Nyssa followed. They had gone about twenty feet when the floor of the cave suddenly gave out beneath them. Panicked, both girls thrashed around trying to grab hold of something. There was nothing in reach, though, and they fell through the floor and into darkness.

A part of Diane reproached her, telling her that she knew it was a mistake to wander about on her own. Even as the ground gave out beneath her feet, Diane knew what was going on. The great spider that lived under the gorg's castle built traps that could be amazingly sophisticated. Like the one she and Nyssa were now trapped in. The spider first dug a hole and then built a web about halfway down it. Then it built a different kind of web over the top of the hole. It looked just like the floor and, when you fell through, it served to entangle you. Once you fell into the web halfway down the hole, the two webs seemed to combine. The more you struggled, the more tangled you became.

"Don't move!" Diane called out. She could feel the web shaking and guessed that Nyssa was trying to free herself.

"What happened?"

"You remember that spider Red told you about?"

The web slowly stopped shaking.

"What is a spider?" Nyssa asked with some frustration.

"You don't have spiders on Traken?"

"Traken no longer exists," Nyssa said, her voice cracking. "And when it did we did not have fraggles or spiders or doozers or..." Nyssa broke off and Diane could hear her crying.

"I'm sorry."

"I was always taught not to grieve, that any life that ends renews another life." She stopped for a moment, trying to control herself. "But my world's death did no good for anyone!"

The sound of Nyssa's voice was causing the moss to grow brighter and Diane's eyes were adjusting to the dark. She could see Nyssa in silhouette. So many webs entangled the girl she looked like some bizarre caricature. Nyssa kept struggling as she talked.

"Nothing left, not my world, my sun, the entire stellar system, the stars." She stopped struggling and her voice became numb with shock. "Not even the stars in my sky."

There was a complete silence for a few moments. Diane tried to absorb the young girl's words. A world? Gone? How could a world so completely be destroyed? Diane wanted to know, yet she didn't want to know. She wanted to stay in

Fraggle Rock and not worry about anything ever again.

The moment the thought struck her, Diane realized that there would not be a Fraggle Rock unless she and Nyssa got out of the trap. She started to move, twisting and turning within the web.

"What are you doing?"

"Gobo taught me a way to get out of this."

"The fraggle?"

"Right, in The Ancient Book Of Fraggle Wisdom. The great spider lays out his webs in five separate ways. They can be on the ceiling, the walls, the floor, in a hole or spread out as a net waiting to be pulled up. To get out of the one we're stuck in, you have to twist and turn in a very exact pattern. Like a dance."

"What is a spider?" Nyssa asked, her voice still numb from the emotions that had wracked her.

"An arachnid, eight legs, eight eyes and very hungry."

Diane freed her hand and kept on twisting. "They look horrible."

"We never had them on Traken."

Diane freed her other hand and grabbed the side of the hole for leverage. She didn't like the tone that Nyssa's voice had taken on.

"Nyssa, I wish I could say something to make you feel better. Did you have poetry on Traken?"

"Yes."

"There's a poem I know," Diane started to twist her leg. "Winter Heaven. Did you ever hear it?"

"No."

Diane got her leg free and began twisting the other one. "Well there's a line in it, Life glistens on the river of death."

"What does that mean?"

"It means..." Diane faltered for a moment. "Well, it's supposed to mean that nothing last forever. Maybe that wasn't the best quote." She gave one final twist and her other leg got free. Balancing carefully against the wall

Diane started to walk across the web much like a trapeze artist on a net. "But I don't think you'd understand To be or Not to Be. The whole point is that you have to grieve to live. If you don't let yourself feel bad, you'll never feel good again."

"On Traken, death was never something to be feared, nor was the death of a loved one to be mourned. Everyone on Traken was as one with the planet and focused into the Source."

"Was the Source your name for God?"

"No, the Source was a union. An energy field that was made from every living thing on Traken. It was controlled by the Keeper and the Keeper was one with the planet. It was a balance of harmony that made sure no one was ever alone. You had only to think of someone you knew, living or dead, and the source would make you feel as if they were right next to you. A spiritual presence who could talk, sing, laugh, or cry. That was the Traken Union."

"It sounds wonderful."

Nyssa's arm was wrapped tightly and Diane was having a hard time getting it free. As a girl Nyssa had been surprised that other races mourned their dead. She did not mourn even her own mother since the source provided her mothers presence when ever she wished it.

But that was all gone now and Nyssa was beginning to realize how lonely a concept death can be. Diane had freed both her arms but somehow Nyssa didn't care. Even when she looked up and saw a giant creature looking down on them.

Beside her Diane stopped moving, frozen in terror. Nyssa wasn't scared. The thought occurred to her that at least with this death she would be part of something again. If only a minor part of the food chain.

Diane Chambers had never really minded spiders. This particular spider however she minded very much. It was larger than she was, coarse black hair covered it's body and legs. The mouth was nothing but teeth and the eyes were small domes of dark black ink. Each of the eight black legs looked like spears. She forgot about freing Nyssa, forgot about all the tricks Gobo had taught her for this sort of situation. Diane was a sparrow looking at a cobra.

For an instant of eternity the spider looked at them. Then it leapt over the hole to the other side. A strand of silk trailed behind it. Once it reached the other side it leaped again and there were two strands of silk above them. Diane watched with morbid fascination as the spider made a roof.

"It's not hungry."

"What is it doing?"

"It's sealing us up for later." Diane tore her eyes away from the rapidly growing roof and started to unwrap Nyssa's leg. "We're in luck, if it had been hungry it would have eaten us right away. If we can get out of here while it's checking the other traps we'll be ok."

Nyssa didn't reply. She just sat there passively while

Diane freed her legs.

"Diane how do you grieve?"

"What?" Diane had freed both Nyssa's legs and leaned back against the wall. "Nyssa I don't think now is the time to talk about it."

"Perhaps your right." Nyssa stood up and Diane could see she was trying to focus her mind on the present. "I don't want to die."

"Nyssa no one wants to die. Especially not as dinner for some overgrown silk maker."

The roof was finished and Diane listened, trying to tell if the spider had moved off.

"I think it's gone. Give me a hand." Diane started to climb the wall but Nyssa didn't move. Without her to act as a brace Diane fell back and nearly became entangled once more. With an effort she regained her balance. "Look Nyssa there's one important rule of grieving, you have to keep going. Remember them, cherish their memory but don't let yourself die with them. Otherwise they really do die."

Nyssa took a deep breath and then looked at the silken roof. "Are you sure it's gone?"

"No, but there's only one way to find out."

Diane started to climb the wall again and this time Nyssa braced her foot so she wouldn't fall back. Straining Diane reached the top of the hole and pressed her hand against the roof. Her hand passed through easily but stuck when she tried to pull it back.

"Damn it." Diane pulled harder and only succeeded in loosing her grip on the side of the wall. She fell away from it only to dangle from the roof by one arm.

"What happened?"

"The Ancient Book Of Fraggle Wisdom needs updating." Diane said. "I guess that spider can spin more than one kind of silk." She was about to tell Nyssa to grab hold of her legs and pull her down, when she heard something. Looking up Diane saw a portion of the web bend down. Then another part did the same. Something was walking on the web.

The spider is back, Diane thought, once more becoming to scared to move. She could see the web bending down and then springing up as the spider moved toward her exposed hand. She felt something start to take hold of her fingers.

Pure terror flooded Diane's soul as she remembered how spiders eat. She pulled her legs up and braced them against the side of the hole. Then, with all her might, she tried to pull her hand free. The web above her collapsed under the strain and Diane fell into the web bellow her. The spider landed on top of her and Diane fought savagely. If she was going to die it would not be a calm or graceful death.

"Diane stop!" Nyssa called out, jumping across the web and grabbing Diane's arm. "It's the Doctor."

Diane opened her eyes and in the dim light Diane saw a man about her own age with light blonde hair. He was covered with webbing and giving her a rather irritated look.

"Oh, I'm sorry, really," Diane started to untangle him from the web. "I thought you were the spider."

"Really."

"Well you grabbed my hand."

"I shall try not to do that again. Nyssa, glad your safe. How are you feeling."

"I'm alright, but Doctor we have a problem, that thing that materialized in the tunnel..."

"Large grey, looks like a wall at our present height?"

"Yes the TARDIS scanner says that it is causing a high amount of dimensional instability. We only have a few hours before the energy builds up to an explosion."

"Then we'll have to stop it won't we." He looked up. "Here, Diane isn't it? Let me give you a boost up."

Once they were out of the hole Diane took a better look at the Doctor. He was about her age but she sensed a timelessness about him. His face seemed...innocent somehow.

His eyes were bright with intelligence and enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm for what Diane wasn't sure, but she couldn't deny that his presence was lifting her spirits. He was having a similar effect on Nyssa.

"How did you find us?" Nyssa asked as they walked back toward the TARDIS.

"I didn't. I got away from some giants and was looking for a way back to the TARDIS when I saw a hand sticking up out of the ground. After that I just sort of dropped in."

"The spider is going to be disappointed," Nyssa said.

"Good. Doctor can you do anything about that thing that's blocking the tunnel."

"I believe so, I have a pretty good idea of what it is."

"How did you get away from the Gorg's" Diane asked.

"Junior seemed convinced that I knew where you were." The Doctor paused for a moment and then went on. "It took me a while to convince him that I was infact sent to look for you."

"But you never met her before."

"Yes, well, they didn't know that. At any rate, I couldn't get back to the TARDIS through the cave and, from what the Gorgs told me, the fraggles came from that cave. Diane had been last seen in the company of fraggles vanishing into a crack in the wall of the castle. It was a pretty good guess that the cave system extended under the castle."

"So, you followed the tunnels until you found us?"

"Not really, I followed the trail that looked like it had been used recently." They stopped for a moment as Diane got her bearings. "Oh, I am supposed to tell you that Junior is still willing to marry you even if you are small."

"No, thanks," Diane said.

"Doctor what did you mean when you said our present

height."

"I'll explain when we get to the TARDIS."

"Typical Dalek technology." the Doctor said, studying the grey wall. "Don't adapt, overcome."

"Dalek?" Diane echoed. She was not used to this; usually she was the one explaining terms and names. For the first time in her life, Diane had the feeling that she was with someone smarter than herself. She wasn't sure she liked it.

"Do you know what that is?"

"It is a Seeker."

The Doctor left the wall and walked over to the TARDIS.

Diane followed.

"What is a Seeker?" She demanded.

The Doctor started to operate controls on the console.

Diane's note had not been touched so they knew that the

fraggles were still somewhere in the TARDIS. The Doctor had sent Nyssa to find them.

"A Seeker is a device designed to follow the TARDIS anywhere in time and wait for a Time Lord to appear.

Presumably me. Once the Time Lord is present, the Seeker detonates, releasing a lethal does of radiation."

"You mean it's a bomb."

"Yes." the Doctor operated a control and the scanner screen came to life. It showed a cut away diagram of the Seeker. "Luckily, this one seems to have wedged itself into the tunnel. So as long as I don't touch it, we shouldn't have too much trouble."

"Why is that thing causing so much trouble?"

"Its slightly complicated," the Doctor said. "It has to do with what Fraggle Rock is and how Fraggle Rock itself can exist."

"You know what Fraggle Rock is?"

"Of course, quite simple really," The Doctor went over to one of the roundels and opened it, taking what looked like a fishing tackle box out of it. "I'll explain after you've taken care of the Seeker."

"After I've taken care of it?"

"Well, I can't do it. If I touch the Seeker it will detonate. Nyssa's in no shape to do it and the fraggles don't have the manual dexterity. You'll have to open it up and trigger the dematerialization circuit."

"What!"

"Don't worry," the Doctor said. He seemed entirely unconcerned about the matter. "According to the scanner we have about an hour."

He put the tackle box in Diane's hand and ushered her out of the TARDIS.

"I thought the Seeker was shielded from scans."

"It is, I called up a diagram from the library."

"What about Nyssa and the fraggles?"

"TARDIS is the safest place for them.' The Doctor led her over to the grey wall. "Come on."

Diane looked at the wall and, for a moment, was tempted to throw the box down and run. But she didn't. She walked over to where the Doctor was sitting and bent down next to him.

Nyssa was well aware that the TARDIS could be confusing. She had sometimes gotten lost just going from her room to the storage rooms. The interior architecture however had never been as frustratingly confusing as it was now.

She shuddered at the thought of the bomb. Not only was it destructive by design it could be destructive by accident as well. When the TARDIS had landed, the relative dimensional stabilizer had reduced both the ship and its passengers to the right size for Fraggle Rock. The Seeker had simply activated a repulsion field, ruthlessly making room for itself.

Nyssa paused at a corridor junction. Down one of the corridors she could hear splashing noises.

"They must have found the pool," Nyssa muttered, running down the corridor toward the TARDIS' pool.

Diane's hand was shaking and she did not want it to shake. Using a tool from the tackle box she had cut through the outer skin of the bomb, then neutralized an alarm and gone through two more layers of metal. Each time she had done so another alarm had to be disabled. Now Diane could see a long black box embedded with hundreds of small dots that were spaced about a millimeter apart. Beside her, the Doctor held a radiation meter.

"Those buttons are the manual controls for the bomb."

"You mean all those dots?"

"Yes. Now you have to push the right one to activate the homing system. That will send the Seeker back to the Dalek command ship."

"Let me guess. If I push the wrong one, we're dead right?"

The Doctor nodded.

Diane took a deep breath and wiped the sweat out of her eyes. The Doctor had given her a long, needle thin probe to work with and she couldn't stop her hand from shaking.

Carefully, she moved the probe closer to the buttons. Then she stopped and took it out again.

"I can't do this."

"Yes you can."

"What if your wrong?"

"Don't worry, it will be over far too quickly to worry about."

"Very funny."

"It wasn't meant as a joke," the Doctor said. "Diane you are the only chance Fraggle Rock has."

"I am," it wasn't really a question but Diane had a sudden hope he would come up with a better idea.

The Doctor nodded. Stealing herself she moved the probe toward the buttons again.

"Which one do I press."

"Go fifty from the right and thirty down."

Diane counted out the columns, then she went down. She couldn't focus properly on the buttons, though, and lost count. She tried again, counting out loud. This time she was able to keep the count and she was certain the probe was over the right one. Her hand was still shaking though.

Diane forced her hand to stay steady and pushed the probe against the button. Just before the probe touched it,

Diane's hand shook again and she missed, pressing the one below it. Instantly the bomb started to emit a high pitched whine that rapidly grew in volume.

"What happened?" Diane asked. She really didn't need to know, but she asked anyway. The look on the Doctor's face confirmed it.

"You pushed the wrong button."

The whine from the bomb got louder and Diane felt her entire body go numb. Her heart stopped and she wondered if indeed there was a heaven. Then there was nothing.

Nyssa led the fraggles toward the console room, drying herself with a towel at the same time. The fraggle's had indeed been in the pool room and Nyssa had gone charging in.

She had thrown open the door and tripped over Boober.

Regaining her balance by grabbing onto a pool chair she then slipped on a wet towel and ended up dragging the chair into the water with her. The fraggles had thought it a fine joke and laughed. Luckily, the pool chair floated and Nyssa was able to get back to the edge of the pool and climb out.

Getting out, Nyssa collapsed on the floor and then, with the fraggles gathered around her, Nyssa surprised herself. She laughed with them.

Now walking back toward the console room Nyssa felt a little guilty; she should have been more careful. But in the back of her mind, the dignified young girl from Traken secretly wished she could do it again.

Walking into the console room, Nyssa saw the Doctor standing at the console making adjustments. A glance at the scanner screen showed a graph representing the dimensional fields. Dimensional physics were not Nyssa's field, but she could tell that the danger had passed. Then she saw Diane lying on the floor next to the wall.

"What happened?" Moki asked, going over to Diane. Nyssa followed her.

"She fainted."

"What about the Seeker?"

"Gone, I set its homing system and it returned to the Dalek command ship." The Doctor took a small piece of metal out of his pocket and looked at it. "Amazing really, I should have thought of it."

"Of what?" Gobo asked.

"She's coming around." Moki said.

Diane opened her eyes and looked at all of them.

"We're not dead, are we?"

"No," The Doctor said making another adjustment on the console. "We are all quite safe."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm fine Nyssa," Diane stood up and then looked at her.

"What happened to you?"

"The fraggles found the TARDIS swimming pool."

"Of course." Diane smiled a small little smile and walked over to the console. "Doctor what happened? You said I pushed the wrong button!"

"You did. You pushed the wrong button and the bomb was triggered and the two radioactive isotopes were sent hurtling against one another." He paused, smiling again. "About ten thousand years too late." He handed Diane the small piece of metal he had been examining. "Do you know what happens to plutonium after thirty thousand years or so?"

"It decays," Nyssa answered. "The Seeker was caught in the unstable time field when the Dalek command ship was destroyed. By the time it broke free, thousands of years must have gone by."

"You mean I went through all that for nothing!"

"Not at all, even if the explosive part of the Seeker was disabled it was still dangerous."

"How?"

"It didn't fit."

Diane put her hands against the console, trying to calm down.

"Doctor, please explain," Diane held up her hand. "Slowly."

"Alright," there was a flash of amusement in the Doctor's eyes. "To begin with, what you know as Fraggle Rock is a dimension that lies between the universe we know and the universe of the gorgs. It is a very small one, no doubt created some time in the past when the two universes bumped up against one another."

"But isn't Fraggle Rock part of Earth?"

"Perhaps this will clarify it," the Doctor said. He opened the TARDIS doors and led Diane over to them, positioning her just in the threshold. "Now, are you in Fraggle Rock or are you in the TARDIS?"

"So, your saying Fraggle Rock is some sort of corridor."

"Right, well, more or less, and when the TARDIS landed it automatically compensated for size and mass. That is why

Nyssa and I are at this height."

"But the Seeker didn't change."

"No, and its mass was causing some rather severe problems."

"As I explained," Nyssa said, "like blowing up a balloon in a box. Sooner or later either the balloon or the box will break."

"Oh." Diane said.

"Do you understand?" Nyssa asked.

"I think so."

"Sounds simple enough to me," Gobo said.

"Why don't we all go back to the rock and the Doctor can explain it." Gobo suggested.

"Yea," Red said "we can get some radishes from the gorgs garden and make a real party of it."

"Can we Doctor?" Nyssa asked. In the past she had grown used to The Doctor's habit of leaving just when things were settling down. Nyssa didn't want to leave Fraggle Rock, at least not until she had more of a chance to talk to Diane. There was a few moments of uncertainty as the Doctor looked at her.

"Why not."

"Doctor?" Diane asked.

"Yes."

"This TARDIS can go anyplace, right?" The Doctor nodded.

"There's a rendezvous that I'm a little late for, do you think you could get me there?"

"I think so. When were you supposed to be there?"

"Yesterday."

"That won't be too much of a problem."

"Are you leaving us Diane?" Moki asked.

"I have to Moki. I have to settle things with Sam. Look when the mushroom is fully grown take it up to the first room and leave it there. I promise I'll be back."

"You promise?"

"Yes."

"Let's go then," Gobo said. "The doozers were building a new tower when we left and it should be done by now."

"Doozer sticks for everyone! Red shouted.

"Doozer sticks?" the Doctor asked, turning to Nyssa.

"They're very good for you." Nyssa said, sharing a small smile with Diane.

END


End file.
